What a great Christmas Day

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Probably the best since I was a kid myself.

We had Peruvian style Christmas, which means roast turkey and fixin's at midnight - fairly simple this year, roasted potatoes and ensalada rusa. Of course, in true Peruvian fashion, we also had some thinly sliced red onion to go with it.

Afterwards, we drank hot chocolate and watched TV while the kids opened presents. The radio-control cars were a big hit with everyone, as was walking down to the end of the street and lighting some firecrackers. We finally got to bed around 3am, after going through a bit of 'some assembly required'.

This morning, we woke up and had paneton and hot chocolate for breakfast - around 11am. The boys woke up at 7 (!!!!) eager to play with their new toys again. Paneton (also spelled panettone) is a bread that originated in Italy. It's a sweet bread, the good one's are moist, that has dried fruit and raisins - like fruit cake. Most everyone picks out the fruit, of course, but the bread itself is awesome.


After we relaxed and got fully awake, we got dressed and everything together to go to the park. We bought a rotisserie chicken with fried potatoes, some ceviche (a Peruvian staple I'll discuss some other time) and some snacks and had a lovely picnic in a park that was once an olive orchard. Huge, old olive trees in rows (in fruit!!), a lovely fountain and kids with new toys made it the perfect place to be today. The weather was perfect, as Christmas here always seems to be, and it was just amazing, laying in the shade under the trees.

The olive trees, as I said, were heavily laden with fruit, and the ground was covered. We laid our blanket down, and it wasn't long before olive oil started seeping through! It smelled so good. Unfortunately, all the branches low enough to reach had been picked clean. The doves and pigeons seemed to have made pretty quick work of all that hit the ground. I would have loved to have been able to get a couple dozen of those olives to take home and use!

We stayed at the park for about 3 hours, until the sun went down enough that it started to feel a little cool. None of us wanted the day to be over though, and we walked slowly through the side streets, looking at the lovely old houses, and daydreaming about one day being able to buy one.

I hope everyone had a Christmas as perfect as ours, filled with peace and love.